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I absolutely believe the past had its share of warrior women who fought like men. Whether some of these were the actual Amazons from Greek myth is another matter.

At a time when Europeans already had a long history of violent contact with Native people, Lewis and Clark made most of their journey in peace.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

The truth is that the history of the last couple of thousand years has been broadly repeated attempts by various people or institutions - in a Freudian way - to rediscover the lost childhood of Europe, this golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans, by trying to unify it.

The Greeks were the first boxers. Pugilism appears to have been one of the earliest distinctions in play and exercise that appeared between the Hellenes and their Asiatic fathers. The unarmed personal encounter was indicative of a sturdier manhood.

The big guys choose who they want to fight and they think about history: 'how many times I defended my title.' They try to break a record: 'how long I was there.' But if you look at the pedigree, who they fought, ain't nobody gonna give them credit for it because they fought a lot of people with no experience.

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

A heroic nature is very Greek.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.